Murmuration (2019)
Murmuration is a site-specific artwork that uses digital processes, light, and sound to create a dynamic audiovisual experience suspended around the exterior of Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The piece uses networked data systems to connect over 700 orbs containing light and audio sources, creating a responsive data swarm that swirls around the building – a vortex of live data. Each autonomous unit responds to their environment to create an array of virtual data murmurations.
The artwork cycles through three phases throughout its twenty-four-hour loop.
During the daytime, Murmuration offers a spatialized, harmonious auditory experience with digital murmurations incorporating a range of local and fictional birds flying around the piece.
At dusk and dawn, the work transforms into a dynamic display of light, harmony, and disharmony as the murmuration comes to life, creating chordal waves of light and sound that flow around the building.
During the nighttime, Murmuration visually shifts into a more calm, delicate cycle of undulating colors accompanied by gentle ripples of suppressed energy. Together, this ecosystem of digital forces creates a virtual aspect to the work, transforming the physical space around it.
Murmuration [mur-muh-rey-shuh n]:
noun
1. A swooping mass of thousands of starlings whirling in unison creating dynamic formations in the sky.
2. Also relates to the utterance of murmuring sounds.
Murmuration is a Squidsoup project commissioned for Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Sound design by Ollie Bown and Squidsoup, with additional sonic components from Garth Paine and students at ASU.
Organized by Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Curator of Programming Julie Ganas.
Funded in part by The City of Scottsdale and Kickstarter.
Exhibition runs from 8 November 2019 until April 2020.
More images here.
